


We Carry On

by Lise



Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Conversations, F/F, Female Friendship, Female Homosexuality, Femslash, Insecurity, Introspection, Sexual Content, Vaginal Fingering, experimenting with comics femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 08:55:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1738757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumors seemed to drift toward Natasha like iron filings toward a magnet. <i>The Black Widow’s outlived three husbands, the Black Widow has never left a mark alive, the Black Widow once killed a man with her fingernails.</i></p><p>Jessica supposed they probably said some of the same things about her, or similar. Maybe worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Carry On

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this for the Porn Battle for my own prompt, and then was too slow and also too insecure to post it. But after having it looked over for characterization (thanks, [ouyangdan](http://ouyangdan.tumblr.com)!) I've decided to just go for it, because I must be the Marvel femslash I wish to see in the world (and one of those Marvel femslash I wish to see in the world is Jess/Natasha. Because reasons. This was also inspired, obliquely, by thinking about legacy heroes, but it's kind of a blink and you'll miss it sort of thing. 
> 
> I like to think about Jess and Natasha having a fairly casual relationships where they hang out and sometimes have sex but it's not like a _serious_ thing except yeah it kind of is. (But shhh don't tell anyone.) 
> 
> I'm still so new at comics and even more new at writing comics. Be gentle with me. 
> 
> Also, if anyone is curious, the last two lines are a reference to something Kelly Sue DeConnick said at Geek Girl Con 2013, about [these panels](http://fuckyeahblackwidow.tumblr.com/post/60095989757/natasha-everyone-dies-alone-jessica-you-heard) in Avengers Assemble #18. [/trivia]

Rumors seemed to drift toward Natasha like iron filings toward a magnet. _The Black Widow’s outlived three husbands, the Black Widow has never left a mark alive, the Black Widow once killed a man with her fingernails._

Jessica supposed they probably said some of the same things about her, or similar. Maybe worse. She’d asked Natasha once, but the other woman had just shrugged. “Don’t bother,” she said. “Is it likely to be worse than what you tell yourself?”

_Spider-Woman is a viper in our midst. Spider-Woman is incapable of love. Spider-Woman was taken by the Skrulls because nobody cared enough about her to notice._

_Spider-Woman can’t keep anyone around because she’s as toxic as her venom blasts._

Maybe not worse. Probably not much different, though.

“Is it true that you once killed a man with your fingernails?” Jess asked, only half watching the opening ceremony on the computer set up on the table. Natasha’s fingers dug into the arch of her foot, and Jess squirmed a little.

“That’s a non-sequitur.” Natasha said blandly.

“Just curious.”

“No,” she said, at length. “I did not.” Jess spent a few moments trying to figure out if that was a lie or not, and then gave up on it. She let out a little groan, toes flexing as Natasha found a sore place and focused here.

“You never tell me any of the good stories,” Jess said, though it came out a little breathless. Natasha’s hands on her feet seemed to spread warmth up her legs. She let her head drop over the arm of the couch, hair swishing down.

“If I had good stories...”

 _You have plenty of good stories,_ Jess didn’t say. _You’ve been fighting for the good guys for how long, now? People still look at me sometimes like they think I’m going to turn green._ She sat up instead, pulling her feet out of the Widow’s lap and tucking them under herself. “So how about them Olympics?” Natasha turned her head and looked at her. Jess didn’t fidget, but she did snap, “what.”

“What are you thinking about?”

 _Legacies. Names. Who’s going to want to put on the Spider-Woman name when I die?_ “Nothing.”

Natasha’s eyes narrowed. Jess thought she shouldn’t find that expression sexy. She found that expression a little sexy. “Mmmhm.”

Jess made herself grin. “Don’t psychoanalyze me, bro.”

Natasha’s lips twitched, just slightly. She remembered telling some SHIELD recruit as a joke once that the Black Widow never smiled unless she was about to kill you, only to realize that she was right there. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t for Natasha to look at her, then at the recruit, and then smile.

Jess was pretty sure the recruit had just about pissed his pants. She’d had a slightly different reaction.

She’d mentioned it to Carol once, who had just shrugged. “What’s the hesitation about?” she asked. “You don’t know until you try.” That was Carol, though.

Jess didn’t think she could have explained to Carol. She wasn’t sure Ms. Captain Marvel had hesitated over anything in her life.

“That’s very 2007 of you,” Natasha said dryly. Jess gestured at the laptop.

“Are we going to watch this, or…”

Natasha made a vague wave of her hand that Jess took to mean she could turn it off. She closed the computer and glanced toward the windows, then away, then back to Natasha. Most of the couch lay between them, strangely like a battleground.

Natasha crossed it first, scooting closer, her hip nudging against Jess’s, and Jess turned her head to kiss her. Natasha rocked into it, kissing her back, and then she pushed Jess back into the couch, stretching out over her.

Jess had expected this to be hard, the physical kind of intimacy, but they’d fallen into it almost thoughtlessly. Maybe they were both so used to lies that this physical kind of truth came easier. Or maybe they were just both used to using their bodies as a weapon.

 _You’re not a bad person,_ Natasha had said, once, and Jess had snapped _do you get to decide that?_

Jess ran her hands up Natasha’s back under her t-shirt as Natasha drew back. “Whatever you’re thinking about,” she said, quietly, her eyes intent, “forget about it.”

“Do you?” Jess said, a little too lightly. Natasha paused.

“Not forever,” she said, after a moment. “But sometimes for a little while.”

* * *

At some point they’d migrated from couch to bed. Shirts discarded, Natasha’s tongue traced spirals over the skin of Jessica’s breasts, her hand roaming down and rubbing the heel over her pubic bone, through her pants. She gasped, nails digging into Natasha’s shoulders, legs falling a little farther open. She could feel Natasha smirking into her skin.

The first time they’d slept together, Jess remembered, they’d both been on Carol’s Avengers team. Natasha had gone down on her and she’d had to fight not to wake up the whole building.

Deft fingers that had been pushing into the soles of her feet unbuttoned her pants and pushed down, two fingers massaging Jess’s labia. Her hips jerked up, unconsciously, and she felt her chest spasm. Natasha’s fingers slid deeper slowly, exploring moistening skin, the heel of her hand still pushing down in little circles. Jess’s eyes fluttered closed.

Natasha’s teeth bit into her skin and her eyes snapped open again even as her fingertip drifted over Jess’s clitoris and she gasped again, hips arching toward Natasha’s hand. A low moan escaped her lips, one hand drifting into Natasha’s hair, the other clutching the sheets.

“Jess,” Natasha breathed, on her skin, barely audible.

She remembered eating beer-pie at the Avengers cookout. Remembered tasting it on Natasha’s lips later. _You’ve been through fire together, recently, and she hasn’t turned on you yet. What are you so afraid of, Drew?_

“Nat-!” It burst out of her as Natasha caught flesh between two fingers and scissored them, her mouth opening wide as her entire body shuddered.

 _Just forget it,_ her body urged. _Just…_

She let it go and surrendered, legs spreading wider and body pushing down into those probing fingers, alternating quick flutters with long strokes. Natasha’s mouth was hot on Jess’s heaving chest and she was gasping for air, straining after her orgasm. Whatever they were, whatever they were doing-

Two of Natasha’s fingers slipped into her and curled, and Jess would have arched off the bed if it weren’t for Natasha’s weight holding her down. The tops of her thighs felt damp, she could hear the slick sound of fingers sliding through her arousal. Her pants were pushed much farther than past her hips, but she felt naked.

“We’ve all got our sins,” Natasha said, her voice low as her fingertips rubbed a spot inside Jessica that made her writhe. “You carry them. Don’t let them carry you.”

Her hand moved back, fingertips finding the little nub of Jess’s clitoris and rubbing upwards.

Jess swallowed her own yell, body clenching, only a whimper sliding from between her teeth as her hips jerked in little involuntary thrusts.

She calmed down, slowly, though Natasha left her fingers resting between Jess’s legs for a few moments longer nonetheless. “That’s one rumor they don’t tell you,” Jess said without thinking, feeling a little giddy.

Natasha laughed quietly, almost soundless. “Maybe you’re just listening to the wrong rumors.” There was maybe something faintly bitter to her voice, but Jess couldn’t be sure. _The only rumors that matter are the ones you tell yourself,_ Natasha had told her once.

_Spider-Woman and Black Widow are banging each other. Eat your heart out, Clint Barton._

“I was wrong, you know,” Natasha said suddenly, her fingers tracing wet lines on Jessica’s stomach. “It’s not the selfish. It’s the cowardly.”

It took her a moment to remember. _Everybody dies alone. Only the selfish live that way._

Jess had always been selfish.

But she wasn’t going to be a coward.


End file.
